I laughed out loud…sorry, you KNOW I love cats, I just forgot how …‘unique’ those fellas are. But if he’s a belly rub loving guy, he’s going to work out just fine.
I started my day with the tech showing up for the trouble call I put in yesterday. No sooner did he walk out, then I got a different error message, so I left word for him, but I had to go get a new ID badge, as mine was about to expire.
When I got back, I got the tech to come over again and fix the problem - YAY! Then he left and I got to work, and damned if I didn’t get still more error messages. So I called and left him a voice mail and I continued to mess with it, because despite the error pop-ups, it seemed to be working, sorta. Until I tried a download and everything I’d been doing had disappeared.
The tech came back and couldn’t figure out which Admin password he needed to use, so he left, then he came back again and did something else. I made him stand there while I went thru the things that had given me problems - it seemed to be working. But by that time, it was an hour past my quitting time and I had had enough. So I left.
In other “good” news, we’ve got a big reorg happening on Weds. :rolleyes: Our group has to vacate the office to make room for the group that gets our spaces. We shall live out of boxes in a corner of the Ops center till some more bodies move around and we get new homes. But we probably won’t be together as a group - which sucks. And there’s a possibility that my project, which I’ve poured myself into for months, may yet disappear, if TPTB don’t find it “sexy” enough. Considering it’s “just” a humanitarian aid project and it doesn’t involve blowing stuff up, it may not pass muster. Which will piss me off. But I won’t know till maybe next week.
1183 days till I can retire… <sigh>
Yep, it’s Monday…
Oh, I WANT him!! He is so keeeeee-ute! I want that oriental chest too! 
Black Magic is adorable! I love those wavy coats. I always wanted a Bashkir Curly when I was growing up.
Happy MMP everyone! Nice OP, Anyrose, although I’m waiting with bated breath for the next installment!
Good luck with your surgery, taxi78cab; will keep you in my prayers & thoughts.
My head is pounding, even though I’ve already taken a couple of alleves, so apologies for all that I’m missing. My weekend was rather quiet, and last week was mostly down. My 78 yo Dad had a corneal transplant back in July; now he’s got a bad staph infection and they’re not sure if he’ll lose his sight in that eye. And then a co-worker’s 17 yo son was killed in a car accident on Fri. morning. Please keep Al (my Dad) and Scott and Denise (the parents of the 17 yo son) in your prayers, all.
It’s a good thing **FCD ** doesn’t know where you live - I think he’d catnap your kitty in a heartbeat. He is a beauty!
Definitely. So sorry to hear about all of that.
Good vibes, wishes, and prayers from The VunderLair headed your way.
[spoiler]The windstorm this weekend started knocking the pee-cans out of the tree. This is the first bucket of many to come.
I also picked 6 buckets of apples, and dumped 3 more that were rotten. Call me Farmer Bob…[/spoiler]
Now it’s time to go play fireman (again today)…
Startling! He looks almost human with those eyes, the longish nose, and the teeny whiskers. What breed is he?
I should qualify that statement - he startled me. But I’m sure he’s as loving a kitty as any domestic short hair.
ok - when last we left our intrepid travellers, they we heading off to sleep after much imbibing. Cuz fell asleep as soon as her head hit the pillow, even before I’d finished setting the alarm for 9:30am. I watched a little of SNL and fell asleep myself
[self hijack]The bit I saw was a skit about Borat. Borat annoys the bejeebus out of me. His ad says “if this movie is not a success, my country will have me executed” (or something similar) and I think “and what’s the bad news?”[/sh]
Several hours later, the alarm goes off and we start to wake up. I find the Today show and we watch while we get washed and dressed. Cuz looks at the TV and syas “why is their clock wrong? It says 8:45” It is then that we realize we forgot about the end of DST. “You mean we could have slept an extra hour??”
We’d planned to meet the family at the Applebee’s that was attached to the hotel. Cuz and I walk in and realize it has a significanty smaller floor plan than most of that chain; the only tables were taken up by a party of a dozen or so students - the rest of the seating was booths. Bro, J, and I would not be comfortable in a booth, and whether we’d even fit is debatable. There was one round table in the bartender at which the manager was having his lunch. But he said we could have that table. He brought over the extra chairs and a high chair just as Bro, D & R came in (D & R rent the apartment in Bro’s house) We settled in to wait for J, M, and the baby (who’d call to say they were running a little late because baby was practicing his right of veto) Bro realized he couldn’t deal with the music speaker being directly above him, and D realized the a/c was dripping on him. I realized it’s just as well because I’d gotten a bad vibe from the manager, whose solution to “no booths please” was “how about these two booths here?” We decided to go to the hotel restaurant and called J & M en route to tell them the change of plans. But apparently, the kitchen closes for a few hours at noon, it was now about a quarter to. We smiled at the waitress and kindly asked her to inquire if kitchen would please make an exception since we were still waiting for some of the group (J called to say they’d missed the left turn off the exit ramp (the right-er of the tow left turns lead to the hotel and the rest of Newton - the left-er of the two dumps one back onto the Pike) and they’d be a few minutes more while) . She did and said they would but could those of present at least place our order so the chef wasn’t standing around doing nothing. We did, and shortly thereafter, the Attleboro contingent walked in. Or tried to, as the wind was preventing them from opening the door. (That was some nasty wind! It occured to me that the Pike was a bit of a wind tunnel to begin with, and here was this large structure for wind to slam into - multiply that by the intensity of yesterday morning’s post storm winds and you get the picture)
We settled down into brunch mode and happily conversed. D told us he and R were friends with the owner and several of the staff from the restaurant we dined at the night before, so they got a very good deal on the reception dinner. When we finished eatig it was time to play with the baby, who (while copioius photos were taken) was passed from Grandpa, to Great Aunt, to Cousin, to new Aunt, to Dad. Uncle D, it seems, does not like to hold diapered individuals. He said “I’ll wait til he’s purposefully out of them (as opposed to merely out of them between changings) and then watch out”. We finished eating, paid and heavily tipped, and moved over to the couches and easy chairs in the hotel lobby, where we stayed talking (and me taking more pictures) for another hour and a half or so.
We said our goodbyes (which in itself took almost a half hour) and Cuz and I got in the car to drive home. The deal was, if she drove home, she could drive all the way into Brooklyn (instead o me dropping her at the LIRR and heading home from there) so she drove. We got a little lost trying to get back on the pike, and got to see lovely downtown West Newton, Mass. But eventually we were back on track. Since, on the way up, she picked Food and Books, my pick for the trip home was Rein’s New York style Deli (which cuz found amusing “we came all the way to Connecticut to eat at a New York Deli”) It’s at Exit 65 in Vernon, and SO worth the stop. They even serve Dr Brown’s Cel-Ray soda! Try the creamed herring appetizer - it’s to die for!
Traffic cooperated, and after one more pit stop, we were home (well, her home anyway) by 8:00pm. We sat and talked for a bit, I showed her the photos (the view screen on the back of my camrea is very big) and I was back on the road by 8:45, home by 9:45, asleep by 10:30, and I actually got up early this morning.
But by 2:30 this afternoon it all caught up with me and I left the office by 3, took a nap, and now I am going to edit the zillions of pics I took.
It was a dark and decidedly non-stormy night. I took Maggie for a walk to the greenway today. She had fun sniffing, and stared at a small fluffy dog. I just had dinner, buffalo pig(pork chops with wing sauce on them), sweetN.O.T., and a salad.
SCL. Black Magic is a striking fellow.
Good haul, bobio, bet you wish you had a beer tree, don’t you?
The only excuse I can come up with for all the non-Renaissance costumes, is the fact that it was Halloween theme weekend. I was bummed out that we screwed up and only used the small chip in the camera, so had to use low res to get more pictures. I’m such a doofus.
Mr. Rebo solved his dilemma from this morning. He told his boss he couldn’t go, because he already had a doctor appointment. And he made one and went. He’s been having weird non-heart related pains in his chest, and then the leg thing too. And the doctor gave him his own script of hydrocodone. So he’s in the clear for the drug test. The doctor ordered him to have a chest x-ray, though.
We’re fixing to have ribs and NOT salad and Ranch Style Beans and corn on the cob. Mmm.
It was a dark and chilly morning, but the recent switch from DST lent the illusion that we were getting away with something. The cats, however, still meowed in relation to the light, not the clock. As the sun rose, the mist clung to the valley floor. Later, it was a bright and chilly day. I bought cat food, saw clients, and stopped by the university to print out some assignments. Then I ate cold meatloaf and entered grades remotely while scanning the Dope.
I’ll be in San Diego in a few days, and I’m glad! Then next week, I head to Southeast Asia for 10 days, which should be steamy and hot enough to make me look forward to a cool Oregon rain round about Thanksgiving.
It was a sunny and pleasant morning; entire day, actually. Even got to go outside during lunch and had ice cream to reduce stress (one of many approved uses, right?).
If you don’t feel like checking in on Thursday, taxi, we’ll expect an update from KeithT. 
Good thoughts and prayers coming at you from Ohio, in any case.
tarra: sorry about your Dad and your friends. They’re in my thoughts and prayers as well.
I’m still getting over DST going away. It was nice to have more light in the morning, but I got tired awfully early last night and it was dark when I left work tonight. I’m hoping that I adapt to it quickly…
Great OP (and subsequent installments), rosie! Sounds like it was a great time. Also, the reception made me hungry. The food sounds fantastic!
Glad you could stop by again, Shoshana - we were wondering where you were heading off to. Is it business or for fun?
There was more, but I’m tired for now… Back after a while.
GT
Good evening all. I’m finally home.
tarra, I’m so sorry to hear about your Dad and your friends. They are in my thoughts.
SCL, that is one WILD looking cat. He looks huge! My husband was just amazed by him. What kind is he? Is it some sort of Abbysinnian (no, I don’t know how to spell it)?
I spent a good part of my day working on a new database and tweaking it with the the stuff the users are going to want. I was making excellent progress and was just about done with it…UNTIL…I goofed big time. I thought I had backed it up, but I didn’t. I had backed up a much earlier version, not this one. At any rate, the users wanted me to put check boxes in the gender field. However, there were already nine thousand records in there, and this particular field was a text field that simply said if the patient was male or female. Why the users can’t type this in is way beyond me. :rolleyes: At any rate, I clicked on the current gender field and changed it to a check box type field, which wiped out the male/female entries. It was TEH GRRRRRRRRR! I was very grrrrrrrrd at my own stupidity. So, now on Wednesday, when I return to work, I get to start over.
Tomorrow is the big surgery day for MIL. Please keep her in your thoughts and hope for a good outcome. We’ll have to get up around 2:45 to ensure we’re at her place on time to take her to the hospital. I’ll have to make sure I go to bed at a decent hour. Maybe I should just stay up…
Need to check on some other stuff. Have a good night all.
Thanks, gardentraveler. I swear I wasn’t ignoring you; I’m just not used to posting and having anyone notice! I would never disregard a request from Ohio, land of my birth.
Both trips are business, but both will be fun, too. The San Diego trip is to present and lead a meeting at the annual meeting of National Organization for Human Services, a conference related to the undergrad major I teach in. Two of my colleagues are going, plus a lot of other folks I only ever see at this conference, so it will be good to catch up and strategize about some of our regional issues.
The other trip is through People to People Ambassadors and is a delegation of psychologists to Vietnam and Cambodia. I’ve been enjoying the preliminary e-mail exchanges with some of the other delegates, and we’ve just received a much more detailed itinerary so we can see which universities, hospitals, and social service/NGO offices we’ll visit. The meeting schedule is pretty heavy, but there’s a trip to Angkor Wat, and a day on the Mekong (hence the antimalarials). I haven’t been able to listen to my Khmer tapes as much as I wanted, but my community college adult ed basic Vietnamese is okay enough for pleasantries. I haven’t yet written my presentation for that trip. I don’t think it will take too long. I will probably draft it in San Diego and dump it into PowerPoint on Sunday. I haven’t been anywhere in Asia, and I’ve always been interested in the region, so I’m really looking forward to it! (I also have fantasies of somehow brokering a 4-week gig where somebody pays for my tickets, puts me up in a dorm, I teach and consult without having to grade anything, and since it’s for the greater glory of my university, I still get my salary.)
Black Magic is a Cornish Rex - silly boy, even his whiskers are curly! He’s not as big as those pictures make him look - he’s around 10 lbs. He is a bit overweight for his breed standard - he has a bit of a belly on him. I’m not planning on showing him, of course, and since I am overweight myself I am hardly one to make my cats diet. The lady who gave him to me was in the habit of giving him a small can of food daily, which he will no longer get once he moves into the cat suite. I will cut it back gradually - poor baby has had enough changes, I’m not going to change his food! - and when he moves into the cat suite with the others he’ll no longer get canned food except as a special treat. Mine seem to do fine without it and their breath isn’t as bad as some cats’ breath can be.
Thank you all for the prayers GT, Taters, Bobbio, and taxi.
VunderBob, you reminded me of a joke that one of my cousins told me when we were kids. I know the MMP has a thing for puns … I’ll warn you all now, this is a bad one! I needed the chuckle, though:
If a chestnut sits by a chest, and a walnut sits by the wall, what kind of nut sits by the bed?
A pee-can!
Remember, I warned you!